Mom's mission personalizes danger of concussions to young athletes

After constant, excruciating headaches that stemmed from multiple concussions and months of unsuccessful treatment, the 16-year-old chose suicide as the way to free himself from the pain.

In the year since his death, Diana Brett, of Davie, has been on a crusade to make her son something other than a statistic. She wants him to be the poster boy whose story will educate parents and young athletes about the dangers of hidden concussions.

Today, Daniel Brett's brain tissue is in the hands of doctors in Boston who are studying the effects of repeated head trauma on athletes.

As Diana Brett waits for their findings, she occasionally finds herself lingering on the website for the Sports Legacy Institute, which includes a page filled with the names and stories of other donor athletes who have been part of the research.

He is the youngest football player being studied, and if doctors find Brett had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that can lead to dementia, he will make history.

"I think it will be huge [if he is diagnosed]," said Dr. Robert Cantu, one of the co-directors of the Center for the Study of Chronic Trauamatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine. "He will have been by far and away the youngest individual with CTE documented, and if that's the case, it will be hugely supportive to the stance I've already taken that youngsters should not be [subjecting] themselves to unneccessary head trauma."

Diana Brett doesn't know if her son had CTE, but she is certain of two things: her son had multiple concussions, and most of them came while he played youth football.

She doesn't regret that her son played the sport. Instead, she smiles when recounting how much he loved football and how he dreamed of playing for the Miami Hurricanes.

She just wants to make sure no other young athlete, football player or not, experiences what her son endured.

"This is my son, my firstborn," she said. "My family has decided we needed to do something to get the message out to the kids that you can't hide your concussions, so that no parent goes through what we did."

A mother's crusade

Daniel Brett began playing football at age 11 with the Sunrise Gators, a youth-league team. A tough player determined to impress coaches, Brett often hid the fact football left him hurting.

Diana Brett says her son's doctors estimated that Daniel suffered as many as 14 concussions in his short career. In March 2011, in an effort to treat those injuries, the Bretts learned about the concussion program at the University of Miami medical school. For a brief period, Daniel's pain subsided.

But the help came too late. When Diana Brett told his doctors about her son's suicide, they weren't surprised.

"You see these kids that suffer for longer periods of time," said Dr. Gillian Hotz, the director of the concussion program at UHealth sports medicine at the University of Miami and one of Daniel's doctors. "They see physicians that aren't trained in concussion management. They'll treat the dizziness, but his [case] became more psychological.

"He was depressed, he went on a downward spiral and one thing compounded with another. It's not that pediatricians and neurologists aren't well trained. They absolutely are. But when it comes to managing concussions, you really have to see them and smell them."

After Daniel's death, Diana Brett started the Daniel Brett Foundation and reached out to other families facing similar struggles. She spoke with Gil Trenum, the father of Austin Trenum, a 17-year-old football player from Virginia who hung himself two days after suffering a concussion.

Trenum, a member of the Prince William County School Board, even provided her with a copy of his district's concussion policy. It was one of the policies she shared with the Broward County School Board when she spoke to school officials about the importance of baseline concussion testing.

In March, Broward County schools adopted that testing for all high school athletes and in April, Brett met with athletic directors and coaches to share her family's story.

"We know it's important to try and provide a higher level of safety to our kids, and she was able to personalize the whole story," said Damian Huttenhoff, Broward's director of athletics and activities. "The important part of what she does is that she tells the kids that they themselves have a role in reporting concussions."